Massively multiplayer online (“MMO”) games enjoy tremendous popularity, with some games numbering players in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. Such games' players typically control one or more player characters, and these player characters interact with other player characters as well as with non-player characters, i.e., characters controlled by the system, and further interact with the game environment itself.
A central design goal for an MMO is to bring the world and characters of the game environment to life. Giving the game environment believable characters and features requires that the experience be engaging, deep, and immersive.
Typical cut scenes or narrative voice overs (VO) are used to enliven characters in a game. However, players have certain expectations of properties with well-known or iconic characters, e.g., licensed superheroes, and in a game setting, the game environment should make each iconic character feel rounded and real. The environment should connect players with such characters personally and socially, creating an illusion that the characters have lives and ambitions beyond any one interaction a player may have with them.
In other words, part of the immersion experience for a player is to have realistic and/or engaging responses from non-player characters and the environment. In prior systems, such responses have had little or no reliance on a player character's prior actions or on game (or world) events. To the extent they did, they were based on prior quests completed, or other such generic game variables.